Pinchbeck posits that: "the current economic crisis may represent, not just a reordering of power and finance in the world, but a deeper expression of a crisis of value, and the opportunity to begin the pendulum swing back again, from an economy based on the meaningless exchange of nihilistic quantities to a different model of economy that would require alternative institutions and techniques to support the socially cohesive expression of values-based qualities."

The vernacular and the complexity of this half of a sentence is reminiscent of the writing of Buckminster Fuller. In "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth", Bucky pointed out that money, and all things of value, had the value they did because they represented the ability to make things happen. Value then is a measure of potential energy. He claimed that a standardization of value based on energy would promote a world wide equalization of economics. Such standardization used to be based on gold. Removal of that standard allowed the financial state of the world to fluctuate. It has fluctuated up predominantly, but that is not necessarily going to always hold. And, it has allowed the density of value to fluctuate primarily into investors' hands, rather than the hands of those whose energy is expended in producing value (note the article's references to Marx, and Marx's claim of wealth is in the hands of the worker).

Note that basing value on energy does not mean just basing it on sources of energy such as oil and coal. These are merely a subset of potential energy. Any means to get work done is included, and the value in the work (including goods and services) performed is based on the energy expended. He claims this is actually already the case, and that making it overt will make it possible to standardize based on the reality rather than on an artificial basis, which can be (and always has eventually been) subverted by those possessing a large collection of whatever is valued at the time.

You can read "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth" for free online at the Buckminster Fuller Institute's web site. Besides getting the above more accurately from the source, it's worth the effort so you can see how Bucky set forth a description of, and prescription for, our future, despite it being written half a century ago. After all this time he is still a futurist.

No, I am not the brain specialist.....
YES. Yes I AM the brain specialist.